Ammacchi by Vaidehi

 It is story of a girl who is referred as Ammacchi by the narrator who seems to be a girl of 10-12 years of age. It is a piece of memory written by the narrator reflecting back on his life. In the beginning only, the narrator mentions that it is not possible to describe all the events. It is story of a girl who lost his father when she was six months old. She was raised by his mother with the help of Venkappayya. Since Venkappayya helped them, her mother always tells her to respect him. This led Venkappayya to always show some sort of dominance over Ammacchi and he use to tell that he would marry Ammacchi. Ammacchi hated her for his behavior and his over indulgence in her family affair. He always stops her going to any place and especially to Shambhatta’s house. One day while he was away for a week, she cut up the back of the shirt. After returning from a visit to Tirupathi, Venkappayya when saw the torn shirt, he caught her by the hair and dragged inside and closed the door. Ammacchi came out and blood was oozing from her lip. He married to Venkappayya and settled in Tirupathi with him. One day, she came home and when her mother asked her why she came alone, she replied with a smile on her face that he hanged himself.

 The short story Ammacchi is written Janaki Srinivasa Murthy whose pen name is Vaidehi. She was born in Kundapur (South Karnataka, India) in a traditional Brahmin family. As a writer most of her stories came from her own experience and her own surrounding of what she has seen in her own village. Many women use to come to her home with their own life struggles, their sufferings in the patriarchal society, their narration how they face these challenges etc. Growing up in such an environment and observing life of people closely made her to think and start writing. The elements of patriarchal society, the way women is treated in the family and society, the struggle of women etc. are quite visible in the story Ammacchi. One can observe these things in the narrative, setting and plot of the story. The behavior of the man and the mother reflects the position of women in the society. She herself was grown in a very traditional family and patriarchal environment and thus she can connect her own feeling with the life and experience of women in her village or in a traditional Indian society.

What I like about the story is that it is quite real; the incidents that took place in the story are very common and still prevalent in the society. The story was written 18 years back but one can still connect to the story since such conditions are still present in the society. For me, it was easy to connect because I have seen or heard many such experiences with and from people around me. Reading into first few pages, made me think how the story going to be end?  I was thinking whether she will be able to escape or the story going to be end on a sad note. These connections made the story interesting for me. Also I like the boldness of her character, maybe it was because of the fact that her father was died when she was very young and thus there was no male dominance in the immediate family and environment. It was also interesting to see that her boldness is not reflected in her words but in her action also. And the story ended in such a way that makes the reader guess that what actually happened. The narrator of the story is a person who is writing something that she had seen in her childhood and thus the points, on which she focused on, are quite different if it had been narrated by Ammacchi herself or her mother. 

The events that took place in the story are very sequential linear fashion but in the middle at one point it seems like the story is stopped and then in the end, suddenly one can see a jump and left the reader thinking what might have happened in course of time. Since the sequence of events happened in a very linear fashion, the interpretation while we were discussing is quite the same. Good thing about discussing the story is that it helps one to look at the events which one might have ignored otherwise or not paid much attention.

The literary discussion helps one to bring in different perspectives and experiences. Like in our discussion, one of the members connected the story of Ammacchi with a movie, similarly one felt that some elements of the story to her own life. Literary discussion brings out such experiences and gives different perspective to the story. Sometimes we don’t pay much attention to some events of the story but the other person might give some meaning to it and looking and discussing one can feel that even the smallest detail in the story can also connect to the setting and background of the character. It also makes one aware of the culture, society, tradition etc.